‘Even with videotaped evidence of police destroying black people, many freedom-loving Americans remain unconvinced of a systematic problem.
‘The idea of having to explain why it’s racial, while we are standing in our own blood is silly. It’s racial because it doesn’t happen to white people.
‘Now, what we’ve been doing is looking at the data, and we know that police somehow manage to de-escalate, disarm and not kill white people every day.
‘If you have no interest in equal right for black people, then do not make suggestions for those who do. SIT DOWN’. — Jesse Williams
Alton Sterling and Philando Castile have now become hashtags due to their unnecessary and unprovoked deaths at the hands of law enforcement officers. Video footage, released all around the internet, clearly shows the brutal and uncivilized manner in which these two men were dealt with.
Alton Sterling was merely selling CDs in front of a store, with permission from the store owner, when a call was made to the police that he allegedly had a firearm. On arrival it is not clear how it all began but video footage clearly shows that the victim was co-operating with the police officers by having his hands up and not resisting arrest (for whatever they were charging him with). Despite his compliance, he was wrestled to the floor and pinned down by two officers; and then shot four to six times in the chest while still detained on the floor.
Philando Castile on the other hand was stopped by law enforcement officers due to a broken tail light. He was with his girlfriend and 4-year-old daughter when the officer proceeded to ask him for his ID which, as he advanced to get it, the officer fired four shots to his body. The video tape footage was recorded by his girlfriend who was terrified for her and her daughter’s life. In the heartbreaking video, the 4-year-old girl could be heard telling her mum who was in agony: ‘It’s ok mummy, I’m here’.
It is highly depressing and sad that these men’s lives had been reduced to nothing but a hashtag. The same system created to serve and protect individuals, is the very system now terrorising and killing black men and women. The same system that in times past advocated and endorsed the enslavement of black people is the same system that claims to bring freedom, equality and security to these very people they once caged. How is that possible?
The false sense of equality that has been fed to our people. The false sense of security that has been sold to our people. The false sense of freedom that has been shoved down our throats by politicians and the media, expecting us to somehow be ‘grateful’ for the counterfeit freedom we have, supposedly, been given …
Should we be grateful that we can now sit at front of the bus without getting arrested? Should we be grateful that we are not clearly segregated any longer? Should we be grateful that we have access to higher levels of education? And should we, be grateful that ropes no longer sit around our necks and hands?
Week after week a father is taken from his family by the system; executed in the street like an animal, and then excuses are made for the officers involved as if they were the victims. It must have been so hard to pull that trigger; so hard to keep that gun pointed at an injured, unconscious human being; so hard to observe the blood-soaked clothes and the cries for help. Poor souls. Justice?
Paid leave and the exoneration of the law enforcement officers involved is the only justice that seem to be served in cases like this. It’s a constant cycle.
Worst of all, we are expected to accept any ridiculous reason handed to us by the system and still be grateful that we have ‘freedom’. They are robbing us of fathers and brothers and husbands, yet we are expected to ‘be calm’ and ‘move on’ because that’s what we have been told to do. Enough is enough.
‘Yes, all lives matter, but we’re focused on the black ones right now because it is very apparent that our judicial system doesn’t know that. Plus, if you can’t see why we’re exclaiming #Blacklivesmatter; you are part of the problem’.
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